


Home is Not a Place

by sussexbound (SamanthaLenore)



Series: Home is Not a Place [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Closeted John, Family you Choose, Friendship/Love, M/M, Post-Season/Series 04, Pre-Slash, Referenced Past Drug Use, The Final Problem Doesn't Exist in this Universe, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-22 06:46:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12475768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SamanthaLenore/pseuds/sussexbound
Summary: “I’ve decided that you’re right.”  Sherlock is leaning against the wall dividing kitchen from lounge, feet bare, dressing gown sliding down over one t-shirt clad shoulder.  He is the very picture of louche, casual indifference.John only glances up from his laptop once, and then works very hard to keep his eyes trained on the screen.  “Oh yeah?  Well, I guess there’s a first time for everything.”





	Home is Not a Place

**Author's Note:**

> OMG y'all, I actually wrote something. it's been ages. 
> 
> This takes place a year after TLD. TFP never happened. That's just the universe I'm living in now.
> 
> This is totally unbetaed, and may be a bit of a mess. I've honestly wondered if I'm even still capable of writing for this fandom, but sometimes the boys still have things to say to me, it seems...

“I’ve decided that you’re right.”Sherlock is leaning against the wall dividing kitchen from lounge, feet bare, dressing gown sliding down over one t-shirt clad shoulder.He is the very picture of louche, casual indifference. 

John only glances up from his laptop once, and then works very hard to keep his eyes trained on the screen.“Oh yeah?Well, I guess there’s a first time for everything.”

Sherlock snorts and pushes away from the wall, striding over to flop into the chair the other side of the desk.John feels his bare toes pressing up against the outside of John’s socked ones.They’re like ice.Why Sherlock insists on going barefoot around the house, even in the middle of winter, John will never know.

“I mean about The Woman.Or—a woman.People.People in general.You’re quite right.I should get out, test the waters, as it were.I should ‘dip my toe in’.”This last statement is delivered with such a tone of barely disguised distaste, that John wonders why Sherlock’s even decided to bother at all.He’d dwell over it longer if not for the sudden, sour feeling settling in the base of his stomach.

“Oh yeah?Huh…Well, might be—good.Good luck with that.”The last bit comes out sounding entirely wrong.Forced.Insincere.Chagrinned even.Sherlock’s silence seems to indicate that he’s of the same opinion.John risks another glance.

The corner of Sherlock’s mouth twitches for the briefest of moments.So brief that John isn’t sure if he even saw it at all.The face looking across at him now is quite serious.“John, you were the one who seemed to think it a necessity, the one who told me that a fuck would complete me as a human being.The least you can do now is help.”

John arches a brow in spite of himself.“Uhh, yeah, that’s not exactly what I meant, but…Okay…Wait.What do you mean ‘help’?”

Sherlock rolls his eyes ( _actually has the audacity to roll his eyes!_ ).“Well, you’re the expert in these matters, are you not?”

John tears his eyes away from the way Sherlock’s adam’s apple bobs as he swallows at the end of the sentence, away from the way his eyebrows arch in impatient anticipation, retreating into a fringe of soft, freshly-washed curls.“Given my track record, that might be a bit of a stretch, don’t you think?”

“I’m not talking about a relationship, John.I’m talking about sex.”

John’s head snaps up, seemingly of it’s own volition.“Oi!What’s that supposed to mean, then?”

“Your poor track record was to do with relationships.You never seemed to have any trouble bedding…Oh wait.No.Scratch that.Hmm…”

John should be furious.Instead he feels unexpectedly relieved.“Listen, I’m not the best person for this.Why don’t you ask—oh, I don’t know…Greg?”

Sherlock snorts out an inelegant laugh.“Greg who’s divorced, who hasn’t taken anyone out to dinner, let alone to bed in almost six months?Greg who’s been mooning over Molly Hooper for four years, and has yet to so much as ask her to coffee?That Greg?”

“Yeah, okay.Point taken.”

“I suppose I will just have to manage on my own…”John sees Sherlock slump dejectedly in his chair over the rim of his laptop screen.He’s sulking. “Isn’t this precisely the sort of thing best friends are meant to do for one another, John…?”Definitely sulking. 

“What?Give you pointers on how to pull, on what to do once you do?”

“Well, I wasn’t going to take it that far, but if you’re offering.”The last word is bitten off quick, almost strangled, as though Sherlock had only realised what he was saying as he was saying it. 

John’s heart flips strangely in his chest.“What?”He finally looks up. 

Sherlock looks like a child caught with his hand in the biscuit jar.“What?” 

“Sherlock, I’m not going to…”

“You’re not going to what?”

“Well—I don’t know.Whatever it is you’re suggesting.I’m not going to do that.”

“I wasn’t suggesting anything.”

“Okay, then…Fine.”

“Fine.”

Sherlock stares down at his hands, and starts picking at a hang nail on his left thumb.John leans back in his chair, and tries to refocus on the blog post he’s writing.It is, of course, absolutely impossible.

“You really want pointers?”

“No.”

“Are you just saying that because you’re in a strop?”

Sherlock’s mouth gives a definite twitch at that.“Maybe.”

John huffs out a small, affectionate laugh.“You’re such a cock.”

Sherlock does smile then, and glances up at him from beneath lowered lashes.If John didn’t know better he’d think…

“I think your instincts are better than you give yourself credit for.Flirting’s just acting, really, and you do a decent enough job of that for cases.If sex’s all you’re after, it’s not really that hard to be what a person wants for just one night.”

“That seems rather dishonest.”

“Not if both parties are mutually aware and consenting.”

“A rather fine line to tread, don’t you think?”

John shrugs.“Maybe…I’ve never really thought about it.To be honest I’ve been rather off my game for ages, so…Last time I even made a successful attempt at something like that was probably…Jesus, I think it was before I shipped out to A. 

“You had plenty of girlfriends that first year or so we flat-shared.Though I suppose the sex wasn’t particularly stellar…”

John frowns, but knows better than to ask just how Sherlock could possibly know such a thing.“Yeah, well—like I said, I’m not the best person to ask.I’m not the best person to ask about any of it.Actually, I think I’ve decided that…"

He’s been thinking about it a lot, of late, but now it’s on the tip of his tongue, the act of saying it seems near impossible.Still, if there’s anyone in the world he’s going to confide it in…

Sherlock is very still.He’s waiting, patiently, as he always does, for John to find his way through the near impenetrable maze of emotion, intention, words.

“I’ve decided I’m not trying for relationships anymore.It’s getting a little ridiculous at my age,I’m clearly pants at it, and I have Rosie to think about.With my track record I don’t want to be introducing women, just to have them disappear again a few months later.Seems unfair to her, and the older she gets the harder it will be to keep from her.

“She and I have each other—and you—and Mrs. Hudson, and Greg and Molly, and all the rest.It’s—it’s a family of a kind, I guess.It’s nice.It’s good.It’s what I want now.”

Sherlock is simply staring, staring at John with a look he can’t interpret.There’s a softness to it.But, something else, too…

“It’s what I want, too.”

“Hmm?”

“This.What we have.It’s what I want.It’s all I want.”

“But, I thought…You just said…” 

The biscuit jar look is back.John looks heavenward, and shakes his head as the truth hits him.“You said that on purpose.You made up that whole ‘playing the field’ thing just to get me to talk about this!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sherlock…”

Sherlock’s eyes flit away, back down to stare at his lap.He starts to unravel a loose thread on the sleeve of his dressing gown.“Fine.Maybe.But you wanted to say it.You’ve been wanting to say it for weeks.You just needed a little—push.”

“Yeah, maybe.But still—not okay.We talked about this.”

Sherlock looks up.“Yes we did.I’m sorry.It wasn’t honest.But, I did mean what I said, John.I do want that.You and Rosie.Family.”

“Yeah?”John’s throat is suddenly tight, and he can’t tell why.

“Yes.Very much.I feel that we’ve made—progress, this last year—with Ella, and—talking about things.I feel that…Well, I’ve been thinking some thoughts of my own.”

“Okay…”

“I would very much like—that is if you want to, if you think Rosie would want to…I would very much like it if you might consider…”

“No.”

Sherlock swallows dryly.“You don’t know what I'm going to ask yet.”

“Yeah, I do.You’re going to ask me to move back here.And believe me, Sherlock, I’ve thought about it.I’ve almost asked so many times, but—I’m still not okay, and I’m barely making ends meet, and…”

“All the more reason to come home.”

_Come home._

The words hang in the room, half comfort, half confession, and John is suddenly and inexplicably terrified.“I can’t.”

“Why?”It’s soft, gentle, patient.

“Because Sherlock, I…”

“Because?”

“Because I don’t deserve it!”It comes out much louder and more desperate than he intended, but Sherlock seems wholly unaffected. 

“I’m asking you to come home.I want you here.It’s not about deserving.Either you want to or you don’t.It’s your home as well as mine, John.It’s always been.”

“It won’t be the same.I have Rosie now.”

“We have Rosie.”

“What?”

“Oh, you know…”Sherlock waves a hand dismissively.“What is it people always say?‘It takes a village’? 

“You don’t have to raise her alone, you know.Of course you have Rosie, and when you come home we’ll have Rosie.Family, yes?Isn’t that what family does?”

“I don’t know, Sherlock.I haven’t got a clue what family does.”

“Together.That’s what family does.”

And John has no response.His throat feels tight, dry.His eyes smart.

Sherlock leans forward in his chair, reaches a hand across the desk and waits.

John stares.He stares at the hangnail in the corner of Sherlock’s thumb, at the small ghosts of track marks still marring the pale skin of Sherlock’s forearm a full year later.He reaches out and slides his hand over Sherlock’s, and Sherlock turns his own to cradle John's in his palm.

“I miss you.”

It steals the breath from John’s lungs.

“I miss you, John.Come home.”

And so he does.Of course he does.Where Sherlock Holmes is, there is John Watson also.So it is.So it’s always been.

Home is not a place.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Home is Not a Place](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13744881) by [Lockedinjohnlock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lockedinjohnlock/pseuds/Lockedinjohnlock)




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